My two favourite quotes from a Paul Graham essay

From "A Fundraising Survival Guide" by Paul Graham
http://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html

"4. Be flexible.

We advise startups to tell investors there are several different routes they could take depending on how much they raised. As little as $50k could pay for food and rent for the founders for a year. A couple (of) hundred thousand would let them get office space and hire some smart people they know from school. A couple (of) million would let them really blow this thing out. The message (and not just the message, but the fact) should be: we're going to succeed no matter what. Raising more money just lets us do it faster."

"5. Be independent.

A startup with a couple (of) founders in their early twenties can have expenses so low that they could be profitable on as little as $2000 per month. That's negligible as corporate revenues go, but the effect on your morale and your bargaining position is anything but. At YC we use the phrase "ramen profitable" to describe the situation where you're making just enough to pay your living expenses. Once you cross into ramen profitable, everything changes. You may still need investment to make it big, but you don't need it this month."

Be ramen profitable!

Masterpiece Starscream

Better than Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Megatron and Galvatron put together!

MP-3 Masterpiece Starscream from U-toys, China Square Central, Singapore

Chicane Live

At the Chivas Live Rain Party at the River Valley swimming pool on 26 September 2008. Totally rocking party! The music was great, the venue was brilliant, the crowd was amazing and the vibe was excellent. Please do it again, Chivas!

Samurai Busking

The shakuhachi was a flute-like instrument played by the samurai in edo-period Japan. Meet Yosuke Irie, the shakuhachi player, who busks at the Mandarin Gallery on Orchard Road. Ancient japanese funk.

F1 Season

Is the best time to check out all sorts of motor racing. Here's a pic of the WRC Suzuki Swift on display at Suntec City.

F1 Fever

Has hit us too... Here's a pic of the replica Renault car at Tangs. Beautiful piece of machine.

Quasimode at the Clarke Quay River Festival

Musicians, like hackers and painters...

Batman: The Killing Joke

Finally bought this Batman graphic novel at the Kino 20% sale over the weekend. Excellent and truly seminal stuff. It ends with a joke, and a truly beautiful one, at that, casting the relationship between the Batman and the Joker in clear light. I love this comic!

Batman: The Killing Joke graphic novel - the origin of the Joker a seminal piece of work - 20% off! from Kinokuniya, Ngee Ann City, Singapore

Let's talk about catchy tunes

UniqueFrequency posted on his blog about the HP Touchsmart PC ad and how the tune was really catchy and viral. I checked out the ad and felt kind of disappointed. Here's the HP ad first:



Now have a look (and listen) at this one:



Honestly speaking (and I know this is probably going to be subjective), which ad has the catchier tune, and which video is more compelling?

Alright, everyone's gonna say, "He's an Apple fanboy and is gonna love whatever crap Apple feeds him anyway." Well, actually I'm not that big a fanboy. Go with what works best for you, I say. And go with whoever delivers the better experience. In the case of the two touch ads, I kinda prefer the Apple one.

Incidentally, the Apple Touch ad was first created as a fan video by Nick Haley without the permission or guidance of Apple. It floated around virally on Youtube for a while, and Apple were so impressed that they asked Nick to help make the actual ad for Apple. Or that's how the story goes, at least. Check out the Nick Haley version below. You'll be amazed how much the final "professional" commercial resembles the original "amateur" one. Respect to Apple for being able to recognise a catchy tune and video! I don't think HP have really figured that out yet.



And if you're curious, the track in the Apple Touch ad is called "Music is my hot hot sex" by a Brazilian band called Cansei de Ser Sexy. You can watch their original music video here, which, incidentally, was the most popular video on Youtube at one point, with close to 90 million views. How's that for viral? (The original video was taken off Youtube sometime back, after it hit #1, so it's not on the most popular list anymore.)

Small Girl Big Appetite released on Podfire!

Podfire's new food show, "Small Girl Big Appetite", is fresh out of the editing room at podfire.sg and sgba.tv. A lovely first episode shot at the French Stall on Serangoon Road. You can watch it (and future episodes) at the above links. I've embedded the first episode here too:



A rather well-shot and presented show, being only the third series Podfire has produced. I'm keeping an eye on these guys to see what else they have in store in the video podcasting space. I'm also rather keen on the smoked salmon and sea bream!

We were at Barcamp Singapore!

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Barcamp Singapore II on Wednesday night was great. Some really interesting speakers from Google, Singeo, Lilihood (loved their control interface) and Homespace, and I loved Preetam's idea pitch about object-tagging. I didn't get to catch the Mobile breakout, because we were presenting a demo on Shoplette for the Maps session, but I'm sure it was great too. Will have to check out the video once it's out.

I think what really made Barcamp II for me was the feeling of learning from each other and sharing our approaches. It was great that the participants weren't just talking about what their site/service did, but also their approach to different problems and how they solved it. That was really helpful. Kudos to Singeo for the tip on Fire Eagle and Skyhook, and also to the Homespace team for their tips on Clusterer and custom info windows for Google Maps. We hope, when we have more stuff on Shoplette, we can share tips that might be useful and valuable to other startups as well.

Barcamp II was the first time we spoke about Shoplette to a public audience and it was a good experience. I think what we gained most was from the questions people asked about Shoplette and the feedback they shared with us about the service. And we actually met a few of our users at the event, which was a real blast!

It's great when you actually get to meet the people who use your service because you get a much better sense of who your market is. Putting an actual face and personality behind your users beats any kind of demographic description in trying to understand what they're expecting and might like from the service. Plus the fact that you get to thank them profusely for their support! (We're incredibly grateful!)

So thanks to the organisers of Barcamp II for a great event, and I'm definitely looking forward to the next one!

Remember to have fun!

Great words of wisdom from Chef Giovanni on "Jamie's Great Italian Escape":



Remember to have fun!
Not just work, work, work.
Let your hair down and play once in a while.



Strangely, my idea of fun is learning Objective C and Cocoa. Erm... Not quite right. But, damn! Objective C really makes object-oriented programming so natural it hurts not to.

We're (finally) in Beta!

Well, actually since a couple of days ago. But I finally have time to blog about it!...



We've been a total of six months in development, three months for the current version, and after a harrowing few months in closed Alpha testing, Shoplette is finally in Public Beta! Do check it out at http://www.shoplette.com



Launching a Beta is scary. There's no doubt about the importance of getting a beta out in the wild quickly in order to test, test, test - you'll never really know the market response otherwise, and you might be working yourself into a corner or dead end without any live feedback on whether the whole idea makes sense. But when you really have to bite the bullet and release your service for market testing, it's pretty scary.

What will they think of it? Will anyone like it? Should we keep working on it, and cleaning it up more, before we let anyone else see it? Do we have only one chance with users, and if it's not good enough now, will they ever come back? These were the questions circling overhead before we launched the Beta.

But in the end, it's something we've been looking forward to for a long time now. A chance to put Shoplette out there in the wild, and to see if it's something people will like to do. You never really know until you test it, and I'm glad we bit the bullet and got it released.

So now it's in your hands. Please check it out, sign up, give it a spin and let us know what you think. We're really happy to receive any feedback from you, good or bad, at team[at]shoplette[dot]com.

Hope you enjoy the site!

http://www.shoplette.com

PSPs on Public Transport

On average, there are 4 PSPs in any MRT train carriage everytime I board the train. I suppose this varies by the time of day (probably happens more in the afternoons and weekends than peak hours on workdays - but then, maybe not) and the carriage (maybe they gravitate towards the end carriages where they can sit down and play).

But anyway, it's an interesting observation. If you take it as an average and multiply that over the number of carriages in an MRT train (??), I think that adds up to a fair number of PSPs.

Apart from possible hypotheses we can suggest about lifestyle and consumer purchasing trends and the ubiquity of handheld gaming, there are also interesting thoughts to draw out about social behaviour in public and on public transport, the idea of private space in public space and common behaviour within this semi-private space, and of course, being in a private (?) virtual world (the game) while sitting in a very public real world space. How natural is it to switch frames of reference from real to virtual, or offline to online, these days?

How does it feel / to be on your own / like a rolling stone?

Listening to Bob Dylan now, which I haven't intentionally done before. I'm surprised that I haven't. Perhaps out of fear. That I should identify with his music and his writing. And fail to reconcile.

But today I am in exactly that mode. Of early dreams frustrated. Of ambitions abandoned disillusioned. Of a loss of faith in progress. But also a feeling of liberation. Or being thrown into the wild. The great unknown ahead. A heady mix of fear and excitement.

Living with uncertainty and launching into the unknown, taken positively, a pioneer spirit, negatively, foolhardiness. Where there a constant feeling of discomfort. And yet the freedom allures.

What is it about freedom that makes it a value unto itself? Is it really all that it's cracked up to be? Political freedom, moral freedom, economic freedom, financial freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom to choose, freedom to act, freedom to live, freedom to be. Something so intangible, yet so desired. Something so contentious, yet so accepted.

How does it feel
To be on your own
When no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone

- Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone

Beautiful poetry.

Poll on whether Wong Kan Seng should resign over JI leader's escape

This is interesting:

http://www.luckypolls.com/10013/should-wong-kan-seng-resign-for-kastaris-escape

At the present time, out of 452 votes, 375 voted "Yes, he should resign", 52 voted "No" and 25 voted "Not sure".

How will the vote turn out with more voters?

You can vote in the right-hand column of the online citizen's homepage:

http://theonlinecitizen.com/

Why is this the #1 video on youtube?

Close to 90 million views!
One comment said, "Tired of being sexy" (which could explain why it's appealing) and another said, "I love this song". Some other people are suspecting a hack. Or is it an avalanche of people sharing it (out of surprise that it's got so many views) and other people viewing it out of curiosity? Do people have to like a video for it to be #1?

It beat this other video, which had 77 million views. It's impressive, though.



I don't think I understand the mechanics of viral videos yet.

Here's someone else's take on it:
http://www.waxy.org/archive/2008/03/05/new_vide.shtml

I like this one:

Speedtesting your Internet connection

I've just done a speedtest for my Starhub connection.



How does this compare to yours? Click on the image to speedtest your connection.

Del.icio.us ain't working for me

I spend far too much time doing research on the Internet. And as a result, I generate a lot of bookmarks, and a lot of sites I return to regularly. I used to think that del.icio.us was a great way to solve the problem of organising my bookmarks and making them accessible anywhere.

But I'm beginning to realise that once I file something on del.icio.us, I forget about it and don't return to del.icio.us to access it again. It's file-and-forget, and these days, my only contact with the site is through the "post on del.icio.us" bookmark. I now use my browser's bookmark menu and tabs to bookmark and return to sites far more than del.icio.us. Which kind of defeats the purpose of filing on del.icio.us to begin with.

Does anyone else have that problem?

Dim sum coffeeshop on Upper Thomson Road

Wonderful little find on Upper Thomson Road, along the same row of shophouse coffeeshops as the 24h Roti Prata House (with the crispy prata).



It's called Hwa Nam Chinese Restaurant (华南菜馆) and it serves excellent freshly-steamed dim sum at $2 per plate. Fantastic! With incredibly friendly and affable staff, you can also order roast duck and other Cantonese cooked dishes from the kitchen.







Do check it out. Closed on Mondays.